


Love is a Battlefield

by illuminedcraft



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-04
Updated: 2012-04-04
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illuminedcraft/pseuds/illuminedcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bloodiest wars are fought in the heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love is a Battlefield

_We are young,_ _Heartache to heartache we stand…_

He’s just a man. He’s just a man. Lucrecia took a deep breath, exhaling in a tightly controlled manner to cage jangling nerves. She glanced through her bangs up at the crisp, shiny name plate on the door: Dr. Grimoire Valentine. It might as well have said ‘Destiny’ for all the young grad student knew. She had loved science for as long as she could remember—and clung to it, despite her mother’s protests that she pursue a more ‘ladylike’ career—but it was Professor Valentine that brought it alive for her. His lectures—she hadn’t missed a one!—brought her to a romance of it, of the course of planets and the spinning of atoms fuelled by the Lifestream. The passion he flooded through stale, old subjects nearly brought a tear to her eye just to think about. And now, here she was, waiting for an interview with this famous figure. With what constituted her whole world. Would he notice? Would he know? Would he find her one of those blithe little fangirls that stalked him between classes?

She shuffled her notes, grumbling silently at her heart to stop trying to escape her ribcage. He had to take her seriously—he just had to. She had to work with him, to delve into the secrets his work promised. This wasn’t even about her, or him, just… the work. Always the work. All Lucy ever wanted in her life was this science. The thing that grasped the very foundations of the universe. Love, to her, was knowledge. It was understanding. If one wished to fully a adore something, one must study it!

That was what had persuaded him in the end, too, to accept her: love. “I’m sorry…. Miss Crescent, but you’re not exactly what I had in mind. My work right now is very rough—much of it is in the field, among the fiends and beasts. Your brilliance is obvious but—“ This is no time to be meek, Lucy! Convince him! “With all due respect, Dr. Valentine…” Lucrecia radiated a strained but exultant smile. “I understand I am not ‘typical’. I know I am a woman, and a delicately built one at that. But before that, I am a scientist—and by what you can guess I have endured to be here, danger to life and limb is far nothing for what I am ready to suffer for my craft.”

_We are strong._ _No one can tell us we’re wrong._ _Searching our hearts for so long._

Easy to say at that time, when the worst she had suffered was some sidelong glances and veiled harassment. When the only thing she had to fight was what was written off with her belonging to ‘the fairier sex.’ Yet another night passed with her struggling in nightmares, turning over the accident that had cost her the larger than life figure of her mentor. Deep red-brown eyes locked on hers, hurt and shocked—disappointed?—begging for her to let go. And to forgive herself. Something she could never do. ‘Accident’? No, hubris. She knew it was her own fault, her own carelessness. Love had been what she believed in, and the blindness it had brought out in her work had killed the object of her affections.

She cried out, sitting up in bed in a cold sweat, sobbing. A long shower and a change of clothes and Lucrecia wandered the halls of Nibelheim like a ghost, mourning for the dead. Not only had Grim died, but his work had gone with him. ShinRa deemed it too dangerous for its potential yield. They informed her bumbling behind was lucky just to still have job. Her thesis lay unpublished, her career in ruins. But she couldn’t turn away. Couldn’t up and leave what she had given everything for. Why make those years a waste? So she took the crumbs they offered, assisting—when she should have been managing—the work of yet another imperious man with a grandiose dream. But there was still hope: the Chaos files, tucked away in her dresser. Her thesis, locked on a harddrive. Maybe some day…

It took all her power to choke down a scream when she turned a corner, running straight into a tall drink of water sporting the same nearly crimson gaze that burned her heart. “M-may I help you?”

_Love is a battlefield._

“I don’t know, this just seems… Why couldn’t you simply pick up Valentine’s work to do this?” Lucrecia turned over the scientific possibilities of what they were asking. And they thought her own work was ludicrous? Oh, right, because they hadn’t thought of it. Egos.

“We’re not trying to make WEAPONs, here, Luce. And not just suped up soldiers—we want true warriors, who can care for the planet. The work you and Grimoire theorized is wonderful, but it’s only the first chapter. More research there won’t help fix the problems we’re starting to see with the planet.” Gast was kind enough in his speech, but patronizing.

Hojo rolled his eyes and pushed off the desk he was leaning on to bend down and leer at her. Lucrecia involuntarily sucked in a breath. His flippant attitude and complete lack of morality bothered her but… but the way he treated the work, with sharp ambition and obsessive thought was something she admired far more than Gast amiable, rambling approach. Hojo could lead her back down the paths Grim had opened for her. The blackness in his soul would, at least, not be afraid of the darkness she had left to walk through. And, if nothing else, out of the whole department, he was the only one who seemed not to give a damn she was utterly broken. He had an enabling, urging sort of demeanor that made her feel like she was worth something—when he wanted something out of her. The rest of the time, he nearly ignored her presence, but in light of the jeering and ridicule that heaped coals on her sins, she’d take it. “Look, here’s the deal: if this is successful, your name is on it. Your career is saved, you can go off and play with your little monster friends. Everyone is happy.”

“But it’s a… child.” Why couldn’t this be easy?

He laid a bony hand on hers. “It’s your life, Doctor.” Why did a smile that devious have to shine so beautifully?

_It would help me to know: do I stand in your way?_ _Or am I the best thing you’ve had?_

Promising to think about it was the only way she had been able to escape their meeting. Nearly running down the hall, she almost didn’t see Vincent standing by a terminal in the data lab, a confused expression across his face. At least here was a conundrum she could probably solve. Lucrecia flashed a soft smile she didn’t feel. “What’s wrong, Vin?”

The Turk swallowed hard, holding up printouts of her thesis, and Grim’s old work. “I was doing the weekly security dump and… there were… what is this, Luce?”

Oh, Shiva, was she still alive? Was she still breathing? Her heart had definitely stopped. “What is what?”

“You worked with my father? Do you know… what happened to him? He died here in the—“

“Vincent, I’m… I’m so… sorry. I can’t.”

_Believe me, believe me  
I can’t tell you why…_

“You can’t…?” He looked stricken, eyes begging just a chance to talk, to work things out. But Lucrecia just couldn’t do that. She had nothing to say. ‘I’m sorry, I killed your father—and now I’m dating you?’ Sure, that would work. Break him in half—better just to wound him and draw back. If she just didn’t tell him, he could go. Be on his own. Oh, why hadn’t she kept this better hidden?

“What’s going on here?” There was almost laughter in Hojo’s voice as he stepped into view. Lucrecia could ignore the sneer in her gratitude for a sudden excuse to escape on.

“Oh, Toshi!” She ran over and flung her arms around him in a hug that surprised all three of them. “Yes, I’ll do it! I just decided.”

“Fantastic!” He played right along, not even knowing his part, giving her a little peck and a triumphant glare at Vincent. They had always hated each other, and it always seemed to revolve around her. Lucrecia’s heart hurt, but this change in direction had to be for the best. She was no good for Vincent—hadn’t she just seen she would lead him to nothing but grief? If she stayed, the past would hang between them. Better to move on.

“You can’t…” Vincent understood quickly—well, her falsehood, anyway. She winced, but smiled sympathetically. He left in a fit. Everything was agony. Lucrecia clung to Hojo’s stained white coat, as he obligingly wrapped a possessive arm around her.

 _But I’m trapped by your love,_ _And I’m chained to your side._

It wasn’t all terrible, this life she had resigned herself to. Dr. Hojo was still hopelessly incorrigible, but pleasantly so most of the time. And as long as she was stroking his ego and following him in his work, well… he believed in her. In the lab, there was a certain equality between them that she didn’t see out of her other colleagues. He really listened, even if half the time he had already decided to do it his way. There was something charming in how his will worked.

Most of all, though, he smiled at her. Always smiling, and whistling. He was unstoppable, unflappable, with her there. He orbited her like a planet around the sun, and she gravitated to his ceaseless bounty of knowledge like a star towards a blackhole. Whatever personal bits he deflected from discussing, he was always willing to discuss the work with her, to expound on his thoughts in the realm she cherished most.

If this wasn’t love, it would still suffice. It was a moment of light in a dim world.

_We are young,_ _Heartache to heartache we stand:_ _No promises, no demands_

The world was spinning. Lucrecia was falling to pieces. Everything was death, death and pain. Jenova cackled in her head and she collapsed in the hallway, screaming. She screamed until she was hoarse.

She had already confronted Hojo, already demanded the child. The baby she had grown to love. The child that really was her life—far beyond the scientific bounty Hojo wanted from him. Tears welled in her eyes and she kept screaming, bitterly, for her short sightedness. Her head was torture, her head was terror. Her body was barely able to stand it.

Lucrecia heaved herself up and walked, hand over hand on the wall, down the narrow corridors wailing for her lost child. She could feel her stitches popping, knew she was still bleeding from her recent labor—but as much as her body ached with illness and trauma, it ached for the life that had once been inside her, the only being she had ever learned to love for his own human merit and not his persona and promise. Motherhood had changed her, and it was not the strength Ifalna promised. This was horror upon horror—this was insanity, having one’s ragged thoughts consumed by a child. It had to be weakness that was driving her to him, that could feel his heart beating in her memories, though his tiny, helpless body was miles away. Oh, gods, Hojo would go through with it. He would finish the Project. He would take her little baby away and make him a soldier.

Twice more, she collapsed, another jagged crying fit sweeping her being. She made her way to their database computers, pulling up files through blurry vision, leaning on the desk as she kneeled there in front of the terminal trying not to wretch. This was all her fault, all of it. Her fault Hojo had Sephiroth, her fault Vincent had died—there is no way that Chaos had worked, there is no way he would wake up—he should already be awake—you failed, you failed ‘crecia, you failed, Little Lucy-failure, failure, why are you so useless, girl? “Please, please stop....”

 _And when all this gets old,  
Will it still feel the same?  
There's no way this will die. _

Hojo was using the baby as a pawn. He wanted Vincent gone. He wanted her docile. She had threatened his work, threatened to go to the board and get his funding yanked for revealing the truth about this project they funded. Hojo had just laughed. “You do that and I’ll kill the child myself—after all, after your little indiscretions, we don’t eve know if he’s mine…” And what if he wasn’t? Could she resist and be responsible for murdering three generations of Valentines?

_But if we get much closer  
I could lose control... _

This thought is what stopped her from erasing his files. Of undoing his work, if she couldn’t share it. There was no way out, no way out, and now that damn virus’s voice laughed again, with insidious glee. She pulled up a protocol by rote, found the programs she wanted, and quickly downloaded something. Dropping the recorded sphere into an envelope, she crawled on all fours to her office, writing Vincent’s name on the crisp white paper and locking it in a drawer. There, if he did come back…

 _And if your heart surrenders,_ _You'll need me to hold._

It was the best she could do. She had realized that. There were no options left that she could see, no way out. As long as she lived, she would keep spiraling in destruction, keep hurting those she loved. Grim and Vincent’s death, the hardness in Hojo’s eyes as time passed. The suffering her affair with Vincent had caused him was worse that what she feared in Vincent knowing the truth about his father. The road to hell really was paved with good intentions.

Now she would find out how close she was to the gate. Quick, quick: she could already hear Hojo calling for her. Hear orderlies pounding the halls. But all she could think of was Sephiroth, and what a liability she was to him alive. She hadn’t yet touched him, hadn’t been able to destroy him. If she slipped away now, there would be one neck she would never be an albatross for. “My precious baby…”

_Love is a Battlefield._


End file.
